A San Fermin Pedimos...

The last several days have been pretty busy as we finished up in Madrid, headed out to San Sebastian, and then made our way to Pamplona for the San Fermin Festival.  But first, the end of Madrid.  For our last full day we went to an aviation museum on an airbase on the outskirts of the city.  It was a little interesting getting there because its sort of in the middle of nowhere and the guard at the entrance to the air base carried out a few security checks before letting us in, including taking our passport information down.  The museum itself was completely worth the trouble, though.  They had a pretty nice collection of vintage airplanes, many of which were relevant to Spanish history, but for me the best part was their collection of vintage airplane engines.  I'm a bit of a WWII nerd and a gearhead at the same time, so seeing all those old piston engines was a real treat.  They had everything from Rolls Royce Merlins to Diamler Benzs and even a Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasp.  There was a nice collection of modern fighter planes outside as well.  After the museum, we rested up and recuperated from the 90*+ heat of the day and then headed out to enjoy our last night in Madrid at a shisha bar, which was very relaxing.

On Monday we took the 8 hour train ride to San Sebastian, on the north coast of Spain in Basque country.  After navigating the streets to our hostel (most of the street signs are in Basque, a language loosely, if at all, related to Spanish, so that was interesting), we caught a few rays on the beach.  At night we walked around the harbor area, which was really gorgeous, especially at sunset, and then had dinner and a couple of beers (Darryl had a Budweiser in honor of it being the 4th of July, I stuck with one of my favorites from Munich).  Tuesday morning we headed out to the beach for a few hours, took a break by walking around town and shopping for a bit, and then went back to the beach in the evening.  At night we took a quick pinxtos crawl, and I encountered my first Spanish tortilla.  I have to say, I'm generally not a fan of omelets unless they include bacon or some sort of meat, but the tortillas with potatoes are damn good.  On Wednesday we walked around the harbor a little more, killed some time in some cafes, and caught our train to Pamplona.

Darry put it best in describing Pamplona during the San Fermin festival - one giant frat basement.  Many of the streets of the old section of town are full of wasted people, plastic cups and bottles, and sloshed sangria.  Everyone in town is also dressed in the traditional San Fermin costume - all white with a red bandanna around the neck and a red sash tied around the waist.  It's pretty neat to see everyone in town dressed the same, and even neater to take part in it.  After settling in to our room about 10 minutes out of town, we decided to go and walk up and down the course of the encierro (bull run) to familiarize ourselves with it.  We've been planning to run with the bulls at San Fermin since the inception of our trip, and therefore we had done quite a bit of research about it.  All the websites and accounts of it say to definitely familiarize yourself with the course before you run, and trust me, it really helps.  After walking the course we caught a really awesome fireworks show over the citadel in the old town and then made our way back to the hotel to rest up for this mornings events.  As tempting as it was to get involved in the street parties, we knew that being well rested and completely sober were also very important for running with the bulls.

This morning we got up at 5:40 and caught a bus into the downtown area. We made our way to the plaza near the start point of the bull run and waited behind a police cordon along with hundreds of other people until about 7:55, 5 minutes before the run started.  At that point the police let us out, and we were allowed to pick a spot on the course to wait for the bulls.  Contrary to popular belief, most people do not run the entire half mile of the course - the bulls can run it very quickly, and it's impossible to keep up with them for the whole time.  We picked a relatively straight, flat area that's generally recommended for first timers.  In the rush to get to our spots, Darryl and I got separated (and both of us were separated from a Dutch fellow that we were chilling with while we were waiting for the police to let us onto the course).  I picked a little doorway on the side of the street and heard a faint chant of "A San Fermín pedimos, por ser nuestro patrón, nos guíe en el encierro dándonos su bendición" (We ask San Fermín, being our patron saint, to guide us in the bull run and give us his blessing).  This verse is chanted by the runners who are standing under the statue of San Fermin, the patron saint of Pamplona, at the very beginning of the course 5, 3, and 1 minute before the run.  I heard the one at 7:59, and moments later I heard the first rocket fire, signaling that the door to the bull pen had been opened and the first of bulls and oxen were hitting the streets.  I watched from my doorway as people ran down the street leisurely way ahead of the bulls. Then a second rocket went off, indicating that all of the bulls and oxen had left the pen and were barreling down the street.  As the bulls approached, the crowd watching from the balconies began to cheer and people were sprinting down the street.  I caught a flash of a black and white bull about 3 blocks away from me and I took off, dodging people falling and slipping on the wet cobblestones as we all jetted down the street.  I took a quick peek behind me and saw that the pack of bulls was about 10 feet back (I had only been running for about 10 seconds but they caught up that quickly), with 2 or 3 people between me and them.  I decided it was time to bail out, spotted another narrow doorway, and pressed myself up against the door as the heard went past.  Shortly after they passed I found Darryl and we ran further up the street towards the bull ring (the end point of the run, which has a dangerous 90* right turn onto a ramp and then a very dangerous bottleneck at the doorway into the ring) when we found out that one of the bulls was still loose nearby on the street.  We took a quick look around, ran to the side, and let it pass by about 30 seconds later.  After some more confusion, we learned that there was yet another bull that had become separated from the pack and was running up the street, but we had no idea where it was.  We decided to make a break for the arena because the bottleneck in the doorway had temporarily cleared up.  Seconds after we made it inside the last bull came barreling through the door, and we hopped over the fence of the ring to watch the drunken idiots that stayed in the ring try to slap the bulls with newspapers (at least 7 of them got gored in the process).  Sorry I don't have pictures of the actual bull run - I didn't want to chance bringing my camera with me.

Right now were resting up, then we're gonna hit the streets and celebrate in proper style...